


Heartwood

by MoonyKat



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Cardiophilia, Horror, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8032297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonyKat/pseuds/MoonyKat
Summary: Arthur makes a decision and regret isn't an option.





	Heartwood

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've written for Mystery Skulls :3

Arthur looks down at the ground in front of him and nods decisively. Walking back to his van, he lets out a shuddery breath and forces himself to calm down. _‘Better late than never,’ _he thinks a little wryly.__

Once he opens the door he immediately starts tossing things into a pile (bolt cutters, Galaham’s spare cage, a donut from one of Mystery’s hidden stashes, a pack of cheesy pretzels from one of Vivi’s hidden stashes) until his hand lands on a tiny metallic sphere. This little guy was built in under five hours while Arthur was running on caffeine and desperation.

He cradles it in his mismatched hands now and feels the smile tugging at his lips. Now this tiny little sphere is going to do the task it was specifically built to do. 

He lets his eyes rest on the small box in the passenger seat for the barest of seconds before carefully closing the door. 

_‘Later. Focus, Arthur, focus,’ _he chides himself as he jogs to the mound of dirt ahead of him.__

He sets the tiny sphere on the ground, presses a few almost invisible buttons on one of its panels and waits, eyeing the surrounding area nervously. Now that he’s being still and focusing on the task at hand, everything is suddenly much more real. So intent as he had been on this task that he hadn’t noticed that the night air is warm, almost cloying and now he can hear crickets and what sound like dogs barking in the distance. He fervently hopes that nobody will stumble upon him now... or later. 

A few minutes pass while the little bot whirs and beeps to itself, and then a flurry of high-pitched chirps as hundreds of small metal arms whip out and begin cutting through the dirt even as a panel on the bottom opens and begins sucking in loose dirt. 

An hour later and a dozen trips to empty the little bot of dirt until, finally, he sees it; just under a thin layer of soil, just a hint of the shiny lacquered surface reflecting a beam of moonlight. Finally! This is it. And all of a sudden it hits him just how very surreal this is. Tonight everything is going to change, and at the same time nothing will have changed at all. 

He flat out runs back to his van, almost tripping over his own feet in the process and almost hits himself in the face with his own metal hand as he goes to balance himself from his near fall.

He opens the door slowly however and picks up the box in the front seat with sure and steady hands. The box is made of dark, porous wood that Arthur had to specially order. He’d spent hours hand-engraving a rose on the lid of the box, each petal deliberately intricate and detailed. And then he painted and stained each petal a beautiful deep purple. Even the lock and hinges on the box are intricate: burnished nickel for the lock and pure silver for the hinges. In short, it is a magnificent box. 

Arthur cradles it’s cold, hard weight against his chest, closes his eyes, and breathes in the night air. Then he opens the box and gently, reverently cups the object from within in his hands and flings the box away. He hears a distant crash, the distinct sound of wood hitting hard stones and splintering to pieces. He doesn’t even give it a second thought.

Arthur lowers himself carefully down into the hole, and gently tucks the object closer to his chest. As he settles himself on his knees, he takes out his knife and inscribes an ankh into the glossy lacquered finish, being careful as he etches the loop and arms of the symbol.

And then he feels the cold, hard object in his hand pulse. He gasps and jerks his hands away from himself. There, in his hands is Lewis’s gold locket. Arthur remembers Lewis’s mother telling him how Lewis used to clutch it in his hands as a child, how he cried and panicked if it was taken away from him. And now Arthur is returning it to him. 

The locket in his hands, no bigger than Lewis’s fist if he balled it up tightly enough, grows warm and then soft, until the gold of it slowly fades away leaving behind deep pinks, reds and delicate blue spiderweb lines. It moves strongly in his hands, strong enough to pump blood throughout Lewis’s body and he can’t help but stare at it. 

Egyptian mythology stated that the heart was the beginning and end of a person. So this, this fist-sized lump in his dirty, scratched, imperfect hands is the essence of Lewis - his excitement, love, passion, past and future - all wrapped up in smooth, shifting muscles and soft, tender, hidden places. 

He runs trembling fingers over the length and breadth of it with his flesh hand and feels fear and love and uncertainty flood his insides until he feels dizzy with it. 

His own heart beats like a snare drum in his chest. Just holding Lewis’s literal heart in his hands is as heady and wonderful as it is frightening. 

But far from disgusted or horrified at holding an actual human heart in his hands, instead he feels an aching tenderness and surging protectiveness which quickly overtake his fear.

This is possibly the most focused and calm Arthur has felt since Lewis died. 

And now Arthur can hold this piece of Lewis to him and keep him safe so no one ever hurts him again. It’s a powerful thought and it takes root with a vengeance. He cradles Lewis’s heart in his own hands and tucks it close. He imagines holding this incontrovertible proof of Lewis’s continuing existence in his hands after a long day, keeping it near and protected and loved. He imagines sleeping with it pressed to his own chest until the beats of their hearts match perfectly. 

And then he imagines the thinly-veiled disgust on Lewis’s face if he knew what Arthur was thinking. 

Still, he’s _almost _tempted to go get the box and tuck this vulnerable part of Lewis away forever. Almost. He knows that’s impossible and, worst of all, it would take away Lewis’s choice. And Lewis deserves to have a choice more than anyone, Arthur muses sadly. Even if that choice isn’t him.__

With his heart in his throat and Lewis’s literal heart in his hands, he opens the casket. An uncertain future is still a future, he tells himself. Lewis flashes in his head, his boyish grin and big, careful hands. And Lewis is worth it.


End file.
